Apple TV

Apple TV Is Closer Than You Think

Rumors about Apple’s television set are in the air after suggestions that Sharp is reworking a Japanese factory to manufacture the iTV — the unconfirmed yet “duh, what else would it be called?” name for Apple’s boob tube. Little is known about the thing other than it will sport an amorphous TFT LCD and be made by Sharp, a very respected HDTV manufacturer. Zenith could not be reached for comment (or prank calls).

In his official biography, Jobs dropped a solid confirmation of the TV’s existence saying that “it will have the simplest user interface you could imagine,” and “I finally cracked it.” Hopefully it won’t be a touchscreen, or else things are going to look a lot like Poltergeist when the kids want to play their white-noise game.

Considering the TV industry has largely been doing the same thing for the last 60 years (broadcast signal, different shape, external device dependence, etc), it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that companies like Sony and Panasonic are a little nervous about Apple, who enters a market, completely turns it upside down and then leaves competition to play catch-up and fight over the profit crumbs. With iTunes success, live-streaming sports events, the largest game library on the planet, and deeper pockets than Paul Bunyan, Apple’s positioned to succeed even without changing a thing. Short of releasing a rabbit-ears box that’s more cardboard than screen and depends on seven Flintstones limestone remotes, Apple’s cloud-integrated TV will already be a step up just by getting rid of clutter.

Sure, it’s not going to be that easy, but not many doubt that this could be Steve Jobs’ last media revolution. The bad news? He’ll have started an entirely new flame war from the grave.